I've got pie but I'm not a pion
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Celestial Weasel's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, May 25th, 2012 | | 11:11 pm |
Lille the pink, the pink, the pink
I had my trip to Lille by Eurostar on Tuesday (8:59 train from Didcot, back at about 11 p.m.). In fact I partook of less of the Lille public transport than I might have, I was going to play it by ear. In the event, I went on both metro lines and the trams but not enormously far on either, certainly not to the ends, not that this was necessarily the point. The metro is essentially the same as airport people-movers the world over, with rubber wheels and completely driverless, no 'train captains' in the manner of the DLR and with doors on the platform that open at the same time as the train doors. The trains are surprisingly narrow, narrower than the Bakerloo line tube trains, for example. It goes further than one would expect underground, obviously these things are never quite isomorphic but the furthest station I went to out of the city (to look at a railway station which the guide book said was worth looking at which was, indeed, light and airy) seemed almost as though, say, Oxford had a completely underground metro with underground stations in Abingdon and Didcot. Lille Europe station, which is looking rather tired, is a short walk from Lille Flanders, the 'old' station, either along a bridge or through a rather bleak square with a statue of Francois Mitterand, possibly the ugliest statue I have ever seen. In the main square some sort of protest was going on entailing an enormous area spread with newspapers. These, of course, blew around, ending up to some extent round the legs of tables and chairs outside cafes and restaurants, with lots of very pissed off looking waiters. Lille is much prettier than I was expecting, I suspect that lots of people know this as I have said it to people and got a sort of 'but everyone knows that' response. Not surprisingly, it is rather reminiscent of the classic pretty Flemish cities. I went to see the modern art museum, LAM, which like all such museums has an irksome website http://www.musee-lam.fr/gb/ and the map to get there only a PDF as far as I can see. Fortunately, it has sponsored lots of 'how to get to LAM' things from the Lille Flanders metro station (metro and then bus 41). As well as modern art, smaller than the permanent collection of Tate Modern / MOMA in NY but more perfectly formed, it has a new wing devoted to Art Brut (outsider art) with some truly bizarre and disturbing stuff. I thought the family ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) cleanskies / timscience would like it. Some space themed, of course, someone who made some (non-functioning obviously) rifles out of scrap material, and some weird paintings in the manner of childrens' books pages about children who look like little girls but have boys' genitalia (but who are referred to as 'Vivian Girls') involved in some strange cosmic war. Ah, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_DargerCould almost do with me uploading some photos, maybe it will happen. I didn't get to see all of the old town. I think Lille could easily deserve a weekend visit (not so sure about vegetarian / vegan food). Self catering perhaps? | | Sunday, May 20th, 2012 | | 12:36 am |
When the Demon is at your door, in the morning he won't be there no more
So, after many years, we are Demon customers no more, and have broadband from Pretends-Not-To-Be-B-But-Is-Really, Plusnet. We weren't Demon customers that early, but certainly from the point at which you had to dial a non-local number, think they had 0171 and 0181 and one in Warrington, and a bit before the release of Netscape. What did I use on my Mac? Something musical instrument themed? No, Cello was for Windows, Viola was for Unix. Hmm, maybe Mosaic but I don't think so. At 12000 or 24000 baud. Hmm. | | Thursday, May 17th, 2012 | | 10:44 pm |
| | 10:02 pm |
More leisure time for artists everywhere
Relevant to some of your interests (and mine), via the Twitter feed of Mr W Gibson, a blog post about IGY by Donald Fagan http://www.sjef.nu/what-a-beautiful-world-this-will-be/linking to an article by Fagan himself about SF http://donaldfagen.com/writing_items.php?itemID=133 (not particularly new, you may have already been aware of it). This contains, amongst many other things including a discussion of Van Vogt and General Semantics, the (possibly well known?) story of Bester meeting Campbell, which reminds me to remind you that Bester's non-SF novel Who He? aka The Rat Race is well worth reading, it is a psychological thriller set in the early days of TV (I know I have mentioned it before) drawing on Bester's career writing for radio and television. | | Monday, May 14th, 2012 | | 10:41 pm |
Not from a strange parallel world at all, but from Canada
From 'The Telidon Book', 1981. Telidon was the Canadian equivalent of Prestel or Minitel, but slightly more advanced. There was a book about it, which I have a copy of. "Chapter 6. 6.1 Information Production Michel Cartier has lived with the Kwakiutl Indians, has served as the director of the Feux Follets, and is a recognised expert on typographic design. He is presently the Director of La Laboratoire de Telematique, a laboratory devoted to active research on videotex (the form and content of the information conveyed), and to training artists and designers to utilize the medium. 1. THE MEDIATICS PROCESS Mediatics is an electronic publishing technique involving preparation of information displays on a screen for subsequent transmission to one or more receivers. The job of a mediatics specialist is to efficiently convert information into a visual message. This process involves three stages: design, production and management. 1.1 Design. Mediatics specialists structure their information in order to develop content. The accent is on organised use of knowledge so that the structured information becomes the user's learning environment. A mediatics learning environment is symbiotic because it stimulates interaction between the user and the information source. A mediatics specialist is an architect who works with knowledge, rather than with steel and concrete, to give information a systematic structure." Did I mention 1981. Good night, mediatics specialists everywhere. | | Saturday, April 28th, 2012 | | 11:47 pm |
| | Saturday, April 21st, 2012 | | 11:10 pm |
The next planned trip
The priorities are (a) the Gravesend - Tilbury Ferry (b) The Woolwich Ferry (c) The Woolwich Foot Tunnel. In the spirit of combining things am tempted to go to / from Aylesbury Vale Parkway this time. This has been opened since back when I were a lad, basically a bit of the freight only line past Aylesbury which will allegedly form part of the East West Link. I am also tempted by (i) the X80 Chafford Hundred to Greenhythe bus - which would have to be in that direction, as this is the only bus that uses the QE2 bridge. However clearly including buses sets a dangerous precedent. That way lies madness etc. I guess it could be Aylesbury Vale Parkway to Marylebone Marylebone To Baker Street Baker Street To St Pancras International St Pancras Internation To Gravesend Gravesend To Tilbury (ferry) Tilbury Riverside To Tilbury Station (allegedly free bus) Tilbury To Chafford Hundred Chafford Hundred To Greenhithe (X80 bus, across QE2 Bridge) Greenhithe to Woolwich Arsenal The Woolwich Tango involving the ferry, the foot tunnel and the DLR and (if at the right time of the day the Thames Clipper) | | Friday, April 20th, 2012 | | 1:49 pm |
Stackunderwhelm
The dreadful StackOverflow seems to have jumped dramatically up Google search results recently. Like ExpertsExchange only with far more bollocks and Slashdot weenie attitude. Grrrr. | | Wednesday, April 18th, 2012 | | 9:01 pm |
Pages From Ceefax / Teletext In View (etc.)
Am pleased to see the BBC has caught up with my LJ post about the demise of Ceefax. I am amused to see that it has become news because analog TV has been switched off in that Lahndahn, although other regions have been switched off before and others have yet to be switched off. Shocked, shocked I am. Anyway... my recollection is that at one point the 'Pages From Ceefax' or something similar on ITV or Channel 4 - the things that displayed pages of text on normal broadcast TV - used some sort of better text / graphics but I can't find any reference to this. Can anyone remember which / when / what was the nature of the text? I vaguely recall it being a bit more pastel coloured, but not actually significantly more high-tech (certainly not 'pages from the red button' or 'pages from teh interwebs' stylee). | | Thursday, April 12th, 2012 | | 12:27 am |
| | Friday, April 6th, 2012 | | 11:37 pm |
I have mentioned this before but not got round to searching for it
As you know, professor, TVS (the winner of the ITV franchise round for the South and South East in the 1980 franchise round - and loser in the auction following the 1990 Broadcasting Act) wanted to break into the cartel of the 'big 5' but weren't allowed to. They produced some networked drama series. Amongst these was C.A.T.S. Eyes, a detective drama which in order to fit in with the station's franchise area had to rather implausibly make out that Maidstone was the centre of the fight against international crime syndicates etc. Anyway, here are the opening credits, from Ute Tube. I had forgotten (a) how bad they are and (b) that Don Warrington was in it - he is kind of Charlie to Jill Gascoine's Angel, I guess. Series 1 (crap - slightly ominous synth reminiscent of The (original) Survivors) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJNzhRP6vdASeries 2 (actually worse - sax and big band, sounding like a poor pastiche of every TV show theme you have ever heard, particularly Shoestring and Rockford files, I think) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UNvxgt5AGY | | Thursday, April 5th, 2012 | | 11:14 pm |
Go East
Following the post by Diamond Geezer http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/tilbury-100.html on the Tilbury Cruise Terminal I am quite tempted to have a trip on the Tilbury Ferry and to see the terminal, probably from the outside, then the remains of the station, then the (alleged free) bus to Tilbury Town station and back to Fenchurch Street (or Limehouse for DLR). I am amused that Google Maps has the long closed Tilbury Riverside station on it. It (or bits of it) are an arts centre now, apparently. It is amazing though how once one gets outside 'Greater London' public transport information just disappears (but then, I suppose, so does public transport to a large extent). | | 10:53 pm |
For other uses, see Booty Call (disambiguation)
Am amused that the Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Californias_Trilogy, in the sentence "The book describes the life of 27-year-old Jim McPherson, who finds himself between literary and academic interests, anti-weapons-industry terrorism, and drugs, parties and casual sex." has links for 'academic', 'anti-weapons-industry' and 'terrorism', but not 'drugs', 'parties' and 'casual sex'. (For the 1988 comedy film starring Lea Thompson, see Casual Sex?. "Booty call" and "Bootie call" redirect here. For other uses, see Booty Call (disambiguation).) | | 10:49 pm |
Dystopia, Dattopia
So, does anything else apart from The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson fall into the category of 'stories that were written as dystopias (*) but which from our perspective now seem impossibly optimistic'? Technically of course I suspect it should be viewed as being an alt-history novel with a jonbar point somewhere in the past from now (not going to read it again to work out precisely when, probably) (*) named after Dystopia, the muse of SF | | Monday, April 2nd, 2012 | | 11:39 pm |
The dear and the Antiope
Amongst books that should have been written but haven't, I am sad that no-one has written the definitive book on Teletext to celebrate its decommissioning along with analog television. It should have been lavishly illustrated with screen-shots obviously, and interviews with editors, graphic designers etc. Probably too late now, and I am certainly not going to write it, even if I had the contacts / talent / time, which obviously I don't. However, if you do want to write it I suggest the title 'Optional Reception of Announcement' (from the first three letters of the mildly contrived Optional Reception of Announcements by Coded Line Electronics). Antiope was the alternative French system, though the French gave up and switched to 'World System Teletext' i.e. 'our' system quite early in the game, before there were many decoders deployed. Antiope was actually somewhat more flexible in terms of what it could display - the British system was deliberately designed so that each line was transmitted with exactly the same number of characters, so that there was no need to decode the text into separate memory - the way it worked was that there were non-printing characters which changed the attributes of subsequent characters without displaying anything for that character itself. This sort of thing mattered many iterations of Moore's Law ago, and is a fine example of the finely honed British ability to do things on the cheap which has been developed over generations of the technical class being told they have to do things cheaply. Quite often this leads to something that does 85% of the job being done for 25% of the cost, in such a way that there is no way of enhancing it to do 100% of the job if and when more money / more resources / cheaper tech becomes available. In this case, however, it seems to have worked. | | 11:23 pm |
Bazzer
Forgot to say, 'Bazzer' won the 'what should the nick-name for the coffee known as a 'flat white' be'. Go forth and order your Bazzers. | | 10:53 pm |
The banality of banality
Something that occurs to me which I don't think I have seen mentioned is that I can easily imagine politicians / civil-servants / whoever thinking 'well, we have people retain email headers using the email protocol, surely we can return Twitter using the Twitter protocol and Facebook using the Facebook protocol?'. It seems to me non-obvious that the world doesn't work that way. Indeed, I would suspect this would be someone's 'first order' assumption if they don't understand very much but know slightly more than the 'it's all magic' level. Certainly, we had (under the old regime) an annual 'work out which parts of our software development are eligible for R & D tax credits' session, and every year I would be struck that the guidelines were written for someone who didn't really know (or care) very much. The list resembled to me what you would get if you asked a pal who was a slightly old and out of touch computer science academic what R & D should be about, 'compilers good, UIs bad' etc., wrote down his/her prejudices and declared that the government guidelines. I never quite got round to working out who I should complain to. I think my boss got someone else to do it most recently, probably fed up with my muttering about it. | | Wednesday, March 28th, 2012 | | 11:25 pm |
Chris Morris is writing the news again
The people who go on about the BBC being left wing in the face of all evidence to the contrary remind me of the factoid that if you have a mixed class of small children and the teacher spends less than 70% of the time with the boys, they complain the teacher is spending all their time with the girls. Heard that a number of times but [citation needed] obviously. But of course we bitter and twisted old people who lived through 79-97 aren't surprised at the BBC coverage of the government's goings on. Look at the Steve Bell collections in the ancient history section of the library.
Talking of which, I saw a picture of a City Limits cover http://www.london-rip.com/ripcitylimits.h tml (top of the two images), got an enormous pang of nostalgia which I wouldn't really have expected. It was a very attractive magazine in that one of its design incarnations. Hard to believe London can only sustain Time Out, but then again London has lots of local papers, called The Times, The Guardian, The Independent etc. etc. - and a local news station called Five Live.
As I have said before, one of the good things about our current car is that the radio can pick up BBC London pretty well, though some of the presenters can be a bit much, but I do find myself shouting OH FUCK OFF at it and then turning off less than I do at The Execution Channel.
I should find some podcasts to listen to, I suppose, but I suspect it is one of those things where the searching is too tedious.
I have mentioned the news story about the cards for OnDigital having their encryption hacked previously on Twitter. I am slightly confused as to what is supposed to be new about this story (I didn't watch the Panorama). I think it may be that the guy whose emails were leaked has admitted to doing what the leaked emails showed he did, but it all seems slightly weak to me, I hope the BBC isn't forced into a(nother) humiliating climb down.
Also, I commend to you this guy's blog on the doomedness of Nokia / Windows Mobile http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/br ands/2012/03/brutal-truth-about-lumia-ca nnot-sustain-even-1-to-1-replacement-of-s ymbian-windows-phone-strategy-do.html | | 10:38 pm |
Fandom, don't ever change
For those who haven't seen it yet, you're in for a treat (I won't say what it is, it will be obvious when you see it). Incoming in 3.......2.........1............ | | Saturday, March 24th, 2012 | | 9:59 pm |
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